ANZAC DAY: What does it mean to you? What does it mean to us here at St Peter’s in 2023? A day off school ‘sweet’, but what do we know about the people directly affected?
A day off school ‘sweet’, but what do we know about the people directly affected? I hope today, in the next few minutes, I can give you a glimpse inside the impact of the ANZAC concept.
Why does a world war on the other side of the planet, over 100 years ago, give us yesterday off school, when the NZ wars fought here around the Waikato barely feature in any of our knowledge and understanding of the New Zealand journey?
As we grow and share the reality of New Zealand’s birth as a nation, the ANZAC story also is weaved into St Peter’s journey. So how are various events, experiences & people linked to the Anzac concept?
Arthur Broadhurst built St Peter’s using his own money (from a successful cotton manufacturing business in England). He set up the private school & became its first Headmaster/Principal in the mid-1930s. Interesting fact: Broadhurst, after his Oxford University stint; gaining a MA in Music. He saw WW1 service in the trenches of France and gained his wings with the Royal Flying Corps in Egypt so it’s WWII that directly impacted life on owl rock here at St Peter’s - just three years after the school opened for business.
World War II ran from 1939 to 1945 and its impacts beyond 1948 for instance (3yrs after the WW II fighting ended) St Peter’s students gained a day off school lessons when the supreme commander (of the allies) Field Marshall Bernard Montgomerie was visiting NZ post-war: Arthur Broadhurst had arranged for Monty’s car (as was his nickname) to stop briefly at the school gates, much where they are today:
All the boys (90 prep-aged lads) waiting patiently, his car pulled up, he got out, and cheers from the boys, he spoke with the Head Boy Riddel, and asked if the boys were well behaved, to which Riddel answered, Oh, yes sir: to which Montgomerie turned to the Headmaster: I’d like to declare a holiday for the boys! to which the boys all threw their caps high into the air with much cheering: Montgomerie saluted, returned to his car and was off.
10 days later the boys and staff had the day off lessons: a treasure hunt with chocolate prizes in the morning, and the afternoon to pursue their club interests: gardening, model making, tending to the calves) or bike riding trip down to the newly finished Karapiro Dam, before the weekly letter-writing to home.
A similar day off was given in August 1945 when news of the end of WWII came through to the school, so they held a special chapel service and allowed the rest of the day off to chill 1945 style: no phones or laptops - so exercise and club activities filled the rest of the day.
WWII took the lives of three St Peter’s men, all in their early 20’s, and who volunteered for war service. Alumni Willie Gould and two teachers, Albert Keith Hancock and Donald Nancarrow.
Sadly, Willie was shot down as a bomber pilot over France, and Donald from his wounds fighting on the ground in Italy.
An interesting story about the young teacher Albert Keith Hancock’ (known as Keith): who was part of the original 1936 teaching group. Keith taught for six years as a science teacher at St Peter’s in what is now the BEC block. He also taught math and geography. Keith was called to service in 1941 and decided to join the New Zealand Airforce. He did so well at flying school that the Airforce kept him on as an instructor to train other pilots for the war effort.
Keith was touring the country to inspire recruits to join the airforce and taking up ATC young cadets for rides up in his tiger moth: but over Carters Beach, Westport in Oct 1943 at 1000 feet he failed to recover from a stall turn manoeuvre and plummeted to his death.
Another sad link to our St Peter’s history was that Keith was due to marry the daughter of Roy Lippincott (who Broadhurst employed to design the chapel and the main school buildings as its chief architect), but Keith’s untimely plane death at just 30 meant that sadly that marriage never took place. His body lies in the Hamilton East cemetery and Mr Broadhurst and about 20 of the students attended his funeral.
A bronze plaque with all three names is on the inner wall in our chapel, but I doubt many generations of St Peter’s students ever have known who and what their stories were: maybe next time you are in the chapel, take a look at the plaque and offer a thought of gratitude for their ultimate sacrifice.
Other impacts of war were felt with compulsory school blackouts with staff having to cover up the windows of schoolhouse. It was such a hassle with too many windows so they simply didn’t use some rooms, or just swapped to low-wattage bulbs. Food rationing in the school kitchens also impacted St Peter’s, so boys grew lots of vegetables as part of an inter-house competition, and practised emergency drills, especially if ever caught outside, “OK lads if an enemy warplane was to fly over and start firing down you need to get under the hedgerows and lie still.”
A sense of fantasy for us nowadays but a sobering reality for that generation of St Peters students: though they would cringe at our recent history of bomb threat evacuation and the sustained masked impact of covid on school life, though early St Peter’s faced quite of a number of epidemics & closures as well from polio, mumps, whooping cough, chicken pox and flu outbreaks in New Zealand.
ANZAC Day targets the anniversary of the landing of Australian and New Zealand troops at Gallipoli, Turkey on 25 April 1915 - 108 years ago. It became a public holiday in 1921 with 2779 New Zealand soldiers died there so many in their early 1920s on the beaches and steep hills of Gallipoli.
On Anzac Day yesterday: We remember with Dawn services around New Zealand. How many of you rose before dawn yesterday? and then later in the day Anzac parades for the Returning men and women who served; but now more the newer generations and younger family members who wear the medals with pride, as time goes by with all veterans of WW1 and WWII now passed on.
Other more recent conflict zones like Vietnam & Malaya, Gulf war & Afghanistan have their veterans. Anzac Day took on a new meaning in peacetime. The red poppy has become a symbol of war remembrance the world over.
The red or Flanders poppy has been linked with battlefield deaths since the 1914-18 World War. It was one of the first plants to grow and bloom on the battlefields of the Belgian region of Flanders. The iconic connection was made most famously by a Canadian medic, Lieutenant-Colonel McCrae, in his poem, ‘In Flanders Fields’.
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses row on row, That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow, Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Distressed at the death of a mate, McCrae scribbled the verses in his notebook. In a cemetery nearby, red poppies blew gently in the breeze. His poem was published in late 1915 and was integral in adopting the poppy as the Anzac symbol and in the yearly remembrance services. We will remember them.
It’s a recognised symbol worldwide to remember that sacrifice and as a beacon to seek peace, not conflict ahead.
We all can carry that mantra in our daily lives to seek compassion, understanding and mateship in our day to deal with the lives of others in our community and with international humanitarian initiatives.
We all play a part in that every day but once a year on 25 April we take time out to remember the journey of our nation: the struggles and sacrifices across all our people both here & overseas to make New Zealand a beacon for better harmony, understanding and vision; to move forward in life: We all need to reflect back. So please let us all say together:
They shall NOT grow old, as we that are left grow old; Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning.
We will remember them.
"LEST WE FORGET”.
Yes: and our motto Structra Saxo, as we all grow & build up our strengths on owl rock, the Anzac spirit and story is part of that history that makes NZ what it is and with that a commitment to be better, to be more tolerant, to be of service, to give leadership, to show courage past our inner fears, to live well, to walk in the footsteps of our past and now it’s time to place YOUR own footprints on the pages of St Peter’s and New Zealand’s chapters.
I for one look forward to learning of your journeys ahead and the positive difference you, each of you, will make in the months and years ahead: however, each 25th of April (ANZAC DAY) take a moment to:
reflect, remember, give gratitude, and commit yourself again to do life well so that we too, in time, will remember you.
Thank you all, God bless.
